Private, public water rights

Any agreement reached today between federal, state and territory governments on a national water rights plan is bound to be very general and leave much important detail to be resolved later. Not surprisingly, there is contention over what proportions the three states most affected - NSW, Victoria and South Australia - and the Federal Government should pay for a $500 million five-year plan to save the Murray-Darling river system. In any proposal for a national water rights scheme, however, the argument over money is less important than the issues of principle.

At a time when the fundamental question of private interests in water from the nation's river systems is under consideration, it is remarkable that it is apparently widely accepted that a national water rights plan should be built on the broad assumption that existing rights will, more or less, be reaffirmed. Yet the issue of water rights has come to a head mainly because of concerns that the health of the nation's river systems has reached a point of crisis. It will be odd indeed if in settling on a new consolidated system of private water rights, environmental issues such as excessive land clearing and salinity, which brought the water rights issue to a head, are treated as of secondary importance.

It is natural, of course, that there has been much emphasis on giving existing users certainty in their future use of water. But among the users there are very different interests in play. Some users have questioned whether others - such as the big rice and cotton growers - should continue to have access to water on the basis they have grown accustomed to. Many - including many farmers - believe some crops are unsuited to Australian conditions.

The model for a national water rights plan which the Council of Australian Governments now seems ready to adopt is one which would grant farmers legally recognised water rights, against which they could borrow - much as they do with their land titles - and in which they could trade. Such a broad formulation combines virtue and vice.

Of course, it is desirable that farmers who depend on irrigation water should have certainty of access, as far as nature allows, to their supplies. Many farmers, however, especially those on traditional smaller family holdings, dread the growth of a new "water market" and the emergence of a new breed of traders in water rights. In theory, such a market should encourage the highest-value uses, including the most sustainable crops. The fear among many farmers, though, is that in the long term it will favour bigger operators at the expense of smaller farmers.

To counter such fears it is proposed that the new market in water should be overseen by government regulators. Yet how much a regulator should interfere in the new market will not always be easy to decide. Nor is the question how much, in pursuit of environmental or other non-agricultural purposes, governments themselves might be called upon to enter the new water market as purchasers of this increasingly precious natural resource.

Anwar caught in another net

In the parlance of the commercial fishing industry, they are referred to, euphemistically, as "by-catch"- those creatures unwittingly ensnared in nets intended for others. In the global security dragnet of the United States-led war on terrorism, the by-catch has to date gone largely unnoticed. Since September 11, 2001, US diplomatic and security relationships have been defined by the urgent objectives of the anti-terrorism campaign. This means a string of new security alliances has been pragmatically forged with authoritarian regimes, many of which once attracted stinging criticism over human rights abuses and draconian security laws. At the behest of the US, such security laws are now being wielded against Islamic extremism. It is not, however, only suspected terrorists who are being caught in the net.

In Malaysia, the Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, took a call from the US President, George Bush, shortly after the September 11 attacks. Dr Mahathir had never concealed his distaste for the West. Neither Washington nor Canberra had ever concealed its distaste for Dr Mahathir and his routine imprisonment and harassment of his political opponents. Malaysia, however, is a majority Muslim nation with an undercurrent of extremism linked to terror networks in Indonesia and the Philippines.

Dr Mahathir sees radical Islam as a threat to his government. This lines up conveniently with Washington's objectives. Thus, Malaysia's notorious Internal Security Act (ISA) - which allows for detention without trial - became an instrument which could be usefully employed in the war on terrorism. Consequently, the US - and later Australia - quietly ceased its criticism of the ISA.

Many of Malaysia's most prominent political prisoners, however, are not Islamic extremists but democrats whose crime is to have challenged Dr Mahathir's monopoly on power. Recent assessments by international human rights agencies conclude that ISA arrests reached a 10-year high last year.

The politicisation of the Malaysian courts was again confirmed this weekend when an appeal by Anwar Ibrahim, once Dr Mahathir's heir apparent, was rejected, despite the key witness having repeatedly recanted his testimony. Mr Anwar is serving a nine-year jail term on a bizarre sodomy charge filed after he alleged corruption within the ruling UMNO party. The disturbing dismissal of Mr Anwar's appeal passed with barely a whimper of protest from the West. Yet, in seeking to protect their own freedoms from terrorists, Western nations should not so readily ignore the plight of those whose freedom has been ensnared in an anti-terrorism net.